


cha-cha sliding into those dms

by presidenthomewrecker



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Comedy, Crack, Crime Scenes, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Millennial Hank Anderson, Swearing, vine references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-22
Updated: 2019-02-22
Packaged: 2019-11-03 16:03:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17880881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/presidenthomewrecker/pseuds/presidenthomewrecker
Summary: Connor downloads a new slang dictionary to make himself more relatable to Lieutenant Anderson. Debatably, he's successful.





	cha-cha sliding into those dms

**Author's Note:**

> i'm probably the only person in the world that thinks this is funny.

_Initializing download…_

_15%..._

_38%..._

_51%..._

_69%... (nice)_

_100%_

_Download complete._

_Organizing files…_

_Dictionary complete._

_Initializing script “Millennial,” subcategory “slang,” codeword “Hank.”_

“Connor.” Someone touches his shoulder, snapping him out of his thoughts. Seeing Connor’s LED slowly shifting from red to yellow, Hank waits a moment before speaking. Connor takes strides to avoid making Lieutenant Anderson uncomfortable, so he usually doesn’t link with his computer, but with his new dictionary being as massive as it is, he had no choice. “We got a homicide downtown.”

Connor turns, his LED shifting back to blue. “Hella.”

***

Robots cannot be on drugs.

Hank knows this, but sometimes, he begins to question it.

He loves Connor like a son, but at the exact same time, there a things going through that kid’s head that he can never hope to understand.

Right now, for example. He could never in his lifetime fathom what caused Connor to call Christina Perri’s “Jar of Hearts” “fire” and then dab as he turned up the volume. But does he say anything? No. Because how the fuck does someone even respond to that? Besides, they have work to do.

Hank side-eyes Connor, whose dabbing only intensified when he caught sight of the 69 cent burgers advertised on Burger King’s sign.

Yeah, he’s going to need to hit the bars after this case.

The site of the homicide is one Hank’s familiar with.

It’s a run-down house sequestered in one of the poorest districts of Detroit. Hank’s covered quite the number of cases here in his time. Hank leans back in his seat, suddenly feeling exhausted. The poor bastards can’t stop dying here.

“Lieutenant?” Connor leans forward, head tilted, eyes expectant.

Hank shakes his head. He wasn’t that noticeably brooding, was he? Regardless, he can’t let Connor catch on, otherwise the kid won’t stop urging him to “talk things through” because it’s “good for his mental and emotional wellbeing.” Fuck that shit. “Sorry. Just zoning out.”

Connor nods his affirmations. “Iconic.”

Again, with no feasible way to respond, Hank simply lets it go and proceeds toward the crime scene.

Captain Fowler is standing outside the house, watching as the perimeter gets wrapped in yellow tape. He offers Hank a weary nod. “Hey, Hank. How’s the android partner treating you?”

Hank glances back over his shoulder at Connor. For the moment, he looks perfectly innocuous—and Hank might believe that if Connor weren’t completely capable of killing a man with his bare hands. However, he never expected Connor to be so capable of stripping away every last bit of sanity he had left.

In the end, Hank just shakes his head. “Something’s going wrong in that kid’s programming.”

Fowler raises an eyebrow. “Do you think he should be taken off the case for the time being?”

“Nah.” As much as Hank thinks someone should be forced to rest and reevaluate themselves after unironically saying “yaaas,” he knows that this weird… whatever it is, won’t interfere with the case. “Just show me the body so I can go home and drink.”

With a shrug, Fowler nods and beckons the two of them inside.

The crime scene is nothing short of gruesome. The floor looks like a goddamn Pollock painting with how much blood’s been spilled on it. On the coffee table, the walls, over the still flickering TV screen. The splatters curve into smears as they travel into the kitchen.

“So he was dragged.” Hank muses. But why? It was clear he’d already been stabbed. So why move the body and not try to hide it?

They follow the blood trail into the kitchen, where the carnage only blossoms.

A corpse is curled up by the fridge, its pale, stiff hands still clutching at the fatal stab wound puncturing its stomach. Its head hangs, and the stench of death in the room is inescapable. There’s less blood, which only confirms that the man had been dead before he’d been moved. Somehow the absence of blood makes the air all the more suffocating.

“This is a big mood, Lieutenant.”

Hank turns to Connor, slowly, just to give his brain enough time to process what the fuck he just heard. His mouth is slightly open, his eyes squinted as he assesses Connor. “What?”

“I, too, experience slight hints of suicidal depression because of my generation’s disillusionment with the government and crumbling economy.” Connor pauses for a beat to point at the body. “Therefore, this corpse is relatable.”

“Okay.” While Hank can’t disagree, that has to be one of the weirdest ways he’s heard someone word existential dread. He just wishes he had the slightest idea of what has gotten into Connor at this point. Could robots even be suicidal?

He dares a glance at Connor, who’s currently analyzing the corpse. Jesus, he doesn’t even want to think about suicidal Connor. He’ll never say it out loud, but Connor is one of the few bright spots in his life, and he probably wouldn’t know how to deal.

“What are we looking at, Connor?” he asks instead.

“One thicc stab wound.”

Hank doesn’t even have to guess to know he meant thick with two c’s. But maybe if he just ignores it, it’ll go away. “Just one?”

“It appears so.”

Hank holds his breath, letting the words sink in. Where was the weird slang or meme reference? Again, he decides to let it go, because it’s a concern about as much as it is a relief.

On one hand, there isn’t something going horribly wrong with Connor’s programming, but on the other hand, there isn’t something going horribly wrong with Connor’s programming. So why the fuck is he acting like this?

“Lieutenant,” Connor says, breaking Hank from his thoughts. “I’ve found something.” Connor drags a knife out from under the fridge. It’s coated in blood and whatever grime was under that fridge. “Tag yourself. I’m the half-scrubbed fingerprints on this knife.”

Hank grimaces. If Connor tries to lick any blood after touching that, Hank is actually going to handcuff him. Still, he can’t help but feel a little proud. “Nice find, Con.” For the sake of his knees, he doesn’t crouch, so the most he can do is hang over Connor’s shoulder. “What kind of prints are we looking at?”

“Two pairs. One from William Boarder.”

Hank’s eyes flit to the dead body not seven feet away. Sometimes it’s easy to forget these people have names, stories. Sometimes it’s easier to not think about it.

“And Tarren Patterson.” Connor’s LED goes yellow as he analyzes the prints. “Caucasian male, twenty-four. He used to live in the area but his recent troubles with unemployment forced him to sell his house.”

“Any past offenses?”

“Once during his senior year of high school. He was caught drinking at a party but was let off with just a warning.”

Hank grunts. “So either this knife hasn’t been washed in a long time or we’ve got ourselves a number one suspect.”

“It looks like the assailant was in a hurry.” Connor concludes. “Something had him so shook that he had to hide the knife before he was done wiping off his fingerprints.”

Hank scans the room. That didn’t account for the fact that the altercation apparently started in the living room, or why the body was moved. “What about the blood trails? If he didn’t have time to ditch the weapon, why did he bother moving the body?”

Connor pauses. “I don’t know.”

“Could’ve been simple panic.” Hank suggests. “Maybe he didn’t have a plan. Tried to get rid of the body, realized he didn’t have the time, and tried to do what he could in the time he had left.”

Connor nods, standing up a little straighter. His eyes are roaming the room, taking in every minute detail, considering every possibility. “If he was in too much of a hurry to properly yeet the murder weapon, then I’m guessing he didn’t have enough time to say Bye Felicia, either.”

“So what? He’s still in the house?” Hank’s blood runs cold at the very thought. The last thing he needs after a fucking android revolution is more people with guns, particularly those that like to hold those guns up to his head.

“Not quite. It seems our subject’s adulting consists of his mother living within a twenty-mile radius.”

“You think he’d hide there?”

Connor nods the affirmative. “Adulting is hard, Lieutenant.”

It’s a five-minute drive to the apartment complex in question.

Hank bangs on the door with the side of his fist. “Detroit Police. Open up.”

No response.

Hank tries again, this time a little more forceful. “Detroit Police!” he repeats.

This time, he counts to ten, and with no response or sign that someone’s even in there, he decides he has no choice but to kick the door in.

He glances back at Connor. He’s gotten so used to the pop culture references that he’s honestly surprised at their absence. “Stay behind me.”

The lock breaks easily, and the door swings open without a fuss.

The house is dead silent.

All the lights are off, save for the one in the kitchen. The TV is also off, and the coffee table is surrounded by a flurry of magazines, almost as if they’d been knocked down in a hurry. Every door is slightly ajar.

Hank turns back to Connor and presses a finger to his lips. He’s sure their suspect is here, but he’s not sure what that will entail if he’s the only one in the apartment.

They creep forward, footsteps silent against the flooring. Hank’s entire body is tense, waiting for a noise, for something to fight, but nothing answers him.

His eyes scan the motionless area, looking for the best hiding place. He proceeds toward the shoe closet and carefully removes his gun.

Next thing he knows, he’s on the ground.

“Stop!” Connor cries. His pounding footsteps disappear down the hallway, but his voice cuts clear through the building. “Where the fuck are your parents? _It’s time to stop!_ ”

Hank picks himself up as quickly as possible. He’s not barely hurt, just had the wind knocked out of him, but he tries to hurry. Connor’s got this, he knows—well, he hopes. Maybe downloading all those goofy slang terms took the place of being a good cop.

He calls in backup as he runs down the stairs. From the windows, he can see Connor in hot pursuit of the perp before they both disappear into an alley. He follows close behind.

Hank rounds the corner just in time to see Connor tackling the perp to the ground. Hank closes the distance between them, the only sound being the perp groaning in pain.

“Sorry for the worry, Lieutenant, but you know I had to do it to ’em.”

“Is this our guy?” Hank scans the perp’s features. Short, dark hair, pale complexion, a definite scowl. He looks just like every other idiot Hank’s had to deal with.

“No, this is Patrick.” Connor leans back, shifting his weight off the man’s shoulders so he can catch a breath.

When the perp pushes himself up, Hank can see the blood splatter covering his chest. “What the fuck are you even saying?”

“Tarren Patterson, you’re under arrest. Sorry not sorry.”

Police sirens wail in the distance. The cars will be here soon. “Hope you have a good excuse for all those bloodstains, Patterson.”

“And that’s the tea.”

***

An hour.

An hour and no progress.

An hour and no progress and _Connor won’t stop quoting Vines_.

Hank’s tried his hand at the interrogation, but he’s not sure which is worse: the fact that Patterson isn’t even remotely cracking, the fact that Connor greets him with meme-based consolations, or the fact that even Connor isn’t having success.

Gavin’s only had a brief glance at the insanity, being in and out of the room, but he’s seen enough to liberally throw around insults. “Did your tin can have an aneurism or something? Or did he just decide to act braindead when he woke up this morning?”

“No, he just thought it would be fun to copy you for a day.”

Connor leaves the interrogation room, looking rather defeated. “I can’t crack this guy. His alibi is on fleek.”

Gavin rolls his eyes. “Jesus. Did 2016 just shit you out?”

Hank leans back in his chair, arms crossed. They couldn’t keep running around in circles like this.

There has to be some way to crack this guy. He has to have something that’ll break him, but what? If only he could find out what that is—and soon, hopefully. Because if he has to listen to Connor use one more bit of outdated slang…

Wait.

Hank sits up, bracing his hand against the table. “Connor. How old is this guy?”

“The suspect is twenty-four.” Connor mutters.

Everything begins piecing itself together. The perp’s initial confusion at Connor’s vocabulary, his near open hostility as a result.

One look at Connor tells him they’re thinking the same thing.

“Lieutenant?” Connor stares at him, determination shrouding his features. “Here’s how Bernie can still win.”

***

Patterson glowers at Connor’s entrance. “Can I leave yet? My alibi holds up.”

Connor narrows his eyes. “Uhh, yeah, I sure hope it _does_.”

“What.” His neck tenses the slightest bit. He’s thrown off his game. Hank leans back, confident they’ll get their confession soon. All they need to do is let Connor run wild.

“What’s wrong? Are you sick?” Connor circles the table. “Got a case of Bofa? Maybe a little bit of Ligma? What about some Sugondese, huh? You got diagnosed with _that_?” He grips the back of Patterson’s chair, jostling him as he leans in.

“I told you I was at my mother’s!”

“Trust me, Patterson, we been knew. What we want is a reason to believe you _didn’t_ kill William Boarder. Don’t you think a half-hidden murder weapon with only your fingerprints is a little sus, Patterson?”

Patterson glares, defiance sparking in his eyes. “I don’t know anything about that.”

“Don’t fuck with me, Patterson! I have the power of God and anime on my side!”

“What does that even mean?”

“Patterson, if you want out of here any time soon, I’d suggest you start throwing shade. If you don’t start naming names, we’ll have no choice but to believe that it was you.” He slams his fist on the desk, demanding Patterson’s attention. “Now, will you spill the tea on your accomplice and make things easier for everyone? Or would you like to try my patience and see what I’m like when the salt is pouring?”

“What the fuck are you even saying?”

“What I’m saying is that an obstruction of justice charge isn’t exactly a glo up for your permanent record—and if you don’t start giving us names, a little discarded evidence is going to be the least of your worries.”

Patterson struggles for an answer, but no words come out of his mouth. He’s stuck there, staring up at Connor, open-mouthed, as his brain tries desperately to respond. It won’t be long now.

Connor continues, “You wanna Pokemon GO to prison for life? Because that’s where you’ll end up if I can’t choose you for a confession!” Connor leans against the table, giving Patterson no room to back away. “Feeling pressured there, Papa John?”

Patterson struggles for another five seconds before he’s finally able to produce a response. “Can you speak English for a second?” He looks at the doors and raises his voice. Poor bastard should know that no one’s coming to help. “Can I get a translator? Something?”

Connor mock-pouts. “Oh, the struggle is real. Excuse me while I play ‘Despacito.’”

“I didn’t do it!” He’s begging at this point. Just one more push.

Connor’s face softens. “Oh, of course. I understand. How about we calm down a bit, have a story.” He calmly sits in the chair opposite of Patterson and narrates, “Hi, my name is Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way and I have long ebony black hair…”

Hank lets the state-sanctioned torture carry on until Chapter 15. He probably would’ve stepped in at Chapter 10, but the sight of Gavin Reed doubled over the table and shouting progressively more broken variations on “what the fuck?” was too funny to end so quickly.

When he finally walks in, there’s a clear look of desperation in Patterson’s eyes. Yeah, it’s only a matter of time before they get their confession.

“Alright, Connor, take a walk.” Hank takes his spot across from Patterson.

“What the fuck was even coming out of his mouth?” Patterson asks. “Was that even English?”

“All we need is a confession.” Hank presses. “Just a little information and you can go.”

“I don’t _know_.” Patterson is holding on by a thread. All Hank needs is one more push.

“Would you rather tell me or Johnny Vine Comp?”

Patterson glances back at the door, and his body goes the slightest bit tense. Hank doesn’t even need to look at the fear in his eyes to know the man’s mind is already made up.

***

Tarren Patterson confessed.

Not only did he confess, though. He spilled his whole goddamn life story before he was done. He and William Boarder had a confrontation that turned physical after Boarder, Patterson’s drug supplier, skimmed enough off the top of Patterson’s profits for Patterson to notice. After sustaining multiple blows to the face, Boarder escaped to the kitchen, where he and Patterson wrestled for the knife until Boarder accidentally stabbed himself.

In a panic, Patterson tried to dispose of the body, but after the gravity of the situation hit him, he knew he would be unable to successfully hide the body and left it in the living room. Instead, he tried to hide the murder weapon, to roughly the same success. From there, he fled back to his home and attempted to dispose of his bloody clothes, which was what he’d been doing when police arrived.

Officers take Patterson into custody, while Hank stands to return to his partner and certified heckler for the day.

Connor stands up a little straighter when Hank enters the room. “Excellent work, Lieutenant. Your interrogation skills are goals.”

“Goals?” Gavin asks. He’s too exhausted to do anything more than dramatically sit with his forehead against the table.

Connor nods the affirmative. “AF.”

Hank slaps Connor on the shoulders. “Couldn’t have done it without ya, Connor.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant. I can’t even.”

“Okay, stop with that already.”

“Pardon?”

“This whole new shtick of yours. What the fuck has gotten into today?” Hank holds up his hand to stop Connor before he can even speak. “And you know exactly what I’m talking about. The old slang, the vine references, the memes? For Chrissake, you did a dramatic reading of ‘My Immortal’ while playing the Wii Channel Theme.”

He hates how Connor frowns, looking like the android equivalent of a kicked puppy, as if that could make Hank feel guilty. He hates that it works.

“I’m sorry, Lieutenant. I just thought you might be warmer towards me if I were able to speak a language you understand.”

“Oh, Christ.” Hank lets his shoulders sag. “Is that what this was all about?”

Connor nods mutely.

“I mean, I was more for the memes than for the slang, but go off, I guess.” Hank cringes as soon as those words are out of his mouth. “Connor, do you see what you’ve done to me?”

“I’m sorry, Lieutenant.”

Hank waves him off. “I guess it would hurt me to spend more time off-hours with ya.”

Connor instantly perks up. “Really?”

Hanks nods, but offers a grave warning. “Mention vore and we’re done.”

Connor’s LED begins blinking yellow. “That word isn’t in my databases. What is vore?”

Hank sighs, shaking his head.

“Goodnight, Connor.”

**Author's Note:**

> btw i've got a [tumblr](http://president-homewrecker.tumblr.com/post/170243158376/hey-guys-i-have-a-really-really-awesomely) if you're interested


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